The idea of Dumbledore's corpse frightened Harry much less than the possibility that he might have misunderstood the living Dumbledore's intentions.
The house-elves of Hogwarts swarmed into the entrance hall, screaming and waving carving knives and cleavers, and at their head, the locket of Regulus Black bouncing on his chest, was Kreacher, his bu...
The elf’s eyes found him, and his lips trembled with the effort to form words.‘Harry... Potter...’And then with a little shudder the elf became quite still, and his eyes were nothing more than great,...
The difficult thing, the glorious thing, was to be who you really were, even if that person was cruel or dangerous, particularly if cruel and dangerous. There was courage in not distinguishing the ani...
The corridor dissolved, and the scene took a little longer to reform: Harry seemed to fly through shifting shapes and colors until his surroundings solidified again and he stood on a hilltop, forlorn...
The barman sidled toward them out of a back room. He was a grump-looking old man with a great deal of a long gray hair and a beard. He was tall and thin and looked vaguely familiar to Harry.
The Chasers throw the Quaffle and put it through the hoops to score, Harry recited. So — that’s sort of like basketball on broomsticks with six hoops, isn’t it?What’s basketball? said Wood curiously.N...
That thing has a name?
That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand new uniform...As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that if was the proudest momen...
That brings her total of real predictions up to two. I should offer her a pay rise
Tell me one last thing, said Harry. Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES. . . . BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES . . . AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE W...
Studying the young woman’s long thin legs, Tessa wondered how different her life would have been if she had had legs like that. She could not help but suspect that it would have been almost entirely d...
Stone dead, said Howard, as though there were degrees of deadness, and the kind that Barry Fairbrother had contracted was particularly sordid.
Someone's dead, said Malfoy, and his voice seemed to go up an octave as he said it. One of your people...I don't know who, it was dark...I stepped over the body...I was supposed to be waiting up here...
Socks are Dobby’s favorite, favorite clothes, sir! he said, ripping off his odd ones and pulling on Uncle Vernon’s. I has seven now, sir. . . . But sir . . . he said, his eyes widening, having pulled...
So all I’ve got to wait for now is Snape to steal the Stone, Harry went on feverishly, then Voldemort will be able to come and finish me off. … Well, I suppose Bane’ll be happy.
Silence fell between the four of them as they looked up at the sky. There was no sign of movement, the stars stared back, unblinking, indifferent, unobscured by flying friends. Where was Ron? Where we...
She kept asking herself whether, if he had looked cleaner, she might have been more concerned; whether, on some subliminal level, she had confused his obvious signs of neglect with street-smartness, t...
STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY’D EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU, I DON’T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I WENT THROUGHWHEN WE SAW IT WAS GON...